Fethard look to make one more step in remarkable turnaround

Fethard’s achievement in reaching the All-Ireland intermediate club semi is not remarkable simply because it is a rarity for a Wexford club to do what they did

CHALLENGE: Rathmore’s Chrissy Spiers expects a big challenge from Fethard of Wexford. Pic: INPHO/Ryan Byrne

Club football teams from Wexford rarely find themselves on the All-Ireland semi-final stage.

Now, that’s not some lazy statement drawn from the county’s lowly standing on the football ladder. It’s just fact. The various Leinster rolls of honour provide corroborating evidence.

Since the inception of the provincial and All-Ireland club competitions at junior and intermediate level in the early noughties, only three Wexford teams have tasted Leinster football success. At the top senior grade, a competition that goes back much further than the early noughties, no Wexford club has ever won the Leinster football championship.

Kilanerin were the county’s mould-breakers. In 2017, they took down the Longford, Kildare, Westmeath, and Dublin champions to annex the Leinster intermediate crown.

Two years later, Rathgarogue-Cushinstown were the first Wexford winners of the Leinster junior championship.

On December 3, Fethard St Mogue’s extended the group to three when capturing the provincial intermediate title. To do so they had to overcome Laois, Wicklow, Kilkenny, and Meath opposition during a six-week period that will live long in the club’s memory.

Fethard’s achievement is not remarkable simply because it is a rarity for a Wexford club to do what they did. Fethard’s achievement stands out because of the annus horribilis the club endured in 2021.

2021 was the year Fethard St Mogue’s were relegated from the senior ranks in both hurling and football. There is a strong crossover between the two codes in the club - roughly nine players in terms of the two starting teams – and so it was a double whammy for most lads pulling on the red jersey.

The collective response, on the football side at least, couldn’t have been any better and so it is to Páirc Uí Rinn they travel on Saturday bidding to become just the second Wexford club football team to reach an All-Ireland final.

As captain Garrett Foley remarked ahead of the Leinster final win over Dunshaughlin, their 2021 demotion was maybe the “kick in the backside we needed”.

“When it happens, it is end of the world kind of stuff. But before our first group game in the county championship against Ballyhogue, we actually spoke as a team and said we are starting again, we are rebuilding, and this is the first step. Lads really took that serious. Every game was a step to where we wanted to get back to.” 

Rathmore, who lost their 20-year senior status in 2019, weren’t as quick to secure their own return ticket to Kerry’s top table. They eventually got there in November, and like the five Kerry clubs before them who have won this competition, Denis Moynihan’s charges are hell bent on now adding All-Ireland honours.

First step is to secure a place in next weekend’s decider and as Derry import Chrissy Spiers told the Kerryman this week, they don’t lack for knowledge on their semi-final opponents.

“On New Year’s Eve, management were sitting in watching the team from Wexford. The boys are already saying that they’re going to run at us, they’ll do this and that, they’ll try to buy frees. They could be sitting down for hours watching opponents, it’s real commitment.”